Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ian S. Makham is the Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and a Professor of Theology and Ethics. He is the author of numerous books, including Against Atheism and An Introduction to Ministry (co-written with Oran Warder). His awards include the Robertson Fellow; Claggett Fellow attached to Washington National Cathedral; Frank Woods Fellow at Trinity College, Melbourne; and F. D. Maurice Lectures at King’s College, London. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

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Liturgical Life Principles

MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING

Contents

Acknowledgments...................................................................................................9Introduction......................................................................................................111. What Does the Healthy and Authentic Living Project Look Like?..................................................152. Appreciating Liturgy...........................................................................................273. Discovering What God Is Like: The Word.........................................................................304. Approaching the Eucharist......................................................................................565. Living Every Day in Gratitude..................................................................................776. How the History of the Prayer Book Contributes to the Healthy and Authentic Living Project.....................877. The Power of Music and Symbol..................................................................................93Appendix One / An Instructed Eucharist: For a Congregation to Understand What Is Going On.........................99Appendix Two / Liturgy and Transformation: For the Scholar........................................................104Notes.............................................................................................................111Additional Resources..............................................................................................112

Chapter One

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Being human can be complicated. We mess up so easily. Christianity explains both why we mess up and offers a vision of how we are intended to be. Christians believe that there is a way that we are intended to be. The whole concept of a "healthy and authentic living project" assumes that humans should live in a certain way. Unpacking this assumption is the purpose of this chapter.

The Spiritual Foundation

For the Christian, there is no question. The starting place for healthy and authentic living is in the recognition that we are connected with the Divine. A key assumption of this study is that God is really there. God made us. We are living in a universe that God intended. This vast cosmos wanted human lives to emerge. Fortunately, thanks to discoveries in modern physics this idea doesn't sound as outlandish as it once did. Physicists are very sensitive to the remarkable maths that made the universe possible. Indeed some talk about the anthropic principle: that the probability of the universe being so finely tuned to enable us to emerge is so high that it looks fixed. It looks like this universe was always intended for planets that can sustain life to emerge. And it is remarkable that all the factors came together. It could have so easily been different: all the odds pointed to a chaotic universe in which life would have been impossible. But instead of the likely, we have the highly unlikely. Order emerged out of the potential chaos. Of course, it might just be a giant fluke. However, Christians would want to say that intention and purpose were at work in this universe. God wanted creatures who had the capacity to receive and give love.

The goal of living is that we discover the gift of love. We are intended to be born into families—with parents who teach us how to give and receive love. We are intended to grow into adults and seize those moments when we can create deep, committed relationships with others around us. And most important of all, we are intended to recognize that God loves us, that God desires to surround us with love and peace. It important for us to recognize that God desperately wants to facilitate an appropriate orientation toward love (Liturgical Life Principle 2—henceforth LLP), and God wants to be involved in all our endeavors (LLP 4). (Here we have two references to parts of the liturgy that will be examined in more detail below.)

Once this is recognized, then we can see why the underlying disposition to life should be one of gratitude (LLP 24). This perhaps is the fundamental divide between the person of faith and the person who cannot see God. The person of faith is in a state of perpetual gratitude. Every morning we wake up: miracle number one for the day. Every day we have a body that operates effectively (and, hopefully, most of the time): miracle number two for the day. Every day we notice the dew in the grass, the sun rising, and the beauty of the flower: miracle number three for the day. And so on. If we are surrounded by so many moments of divine grace, we find ourselves perpetually grateful—grateful to God for the miracle of this day.

If we look at the world through the lenses of gratitude, then life is so much more delightful. It creates a sense of joy that cannot help but be healthy. However, this gratitude is not simply for the great gift of being, but also for what we believe God has done for us.

Thus far a person of any faith tradition could affirm the above account. However, faith traditions diverge about precisely what God has done and is doing in the world. We are not just affirming some nebulous "spiritual force" that permeates the universe. This God has told us what he (or she, because of course God is beyond gender) is like.

The revelation of God for Christians is a life. Contrary to the popular perception, the primary Word of God is the life, death, and resurrection of a person—namely, Jesus of Nazareth. All Christian theology is in the business of reading this life. When we ask the obvious question, "How do we know what God is like?" the answer is, "We read what God is like in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus." How do I know that God is loving and identifies with those who are suffering? Because I can see this in the words and deeds—to quote Acts 1—of Jesus of Nazareth. How do I know that God understands our pain? Because I can see this in the death and suffering of Jesus. How do I know that God understands vulnerability? Because God was vulnerable as a babe in a manger. Knowledge of God is grounded in the revelation of God, which is supremely found in Jesus.

This means that it is vitally important to read and study Scripture, for it is in the written word that we learn about the Eternal Word. Consequently, this project highlights the obligation to learn what God is like through Scripture (see LLP 6, 7, and 23). As a result of learning about the nature of God, we find ourselves with a heightened sense of gratitude, for this God is a God of consistent love.

This is the foundation for the healthy and authentic living project. The project is grounded in a claim about the nature of the world: it is not a freak phenomenon but an entity created by a God who intended each and every one of us.

Objective Morality

Once we recognize that God exists and that we need to be in conversation with God, the next stage follows logically. The purpose of worship is to acknowledge the appropriate value of everything. When we bow the knee and see in God the fullness of love, beauty, and justice, we start to see the standards by which everything should be judged. Morality for...